Faith Endings
by q-siam
Summary: John loses faith. Oneshot


John had been raised in a traditional Christian family. His father saluted him proudly as he set off to help his country, the quiet assurance in his eyes that John would return safe and sound mirroring almost identically the assurance his mother had that some day he'd make her proud and settle down with a nice girl and give her some grandkids.

His parents hadn't really known anything.

Raised on Sunday school every week and the all American dreams his parents put into his head, John had never really questioned anything.

When left to his own devices, though, he wasn't overly religious.

He had several bibles and kept the one his parents had given him when he went to war near his bed, but he wasn't the praying type. Slowly but surely, religion seeped out of his life until he couldn't remember when the last time he'd been to church was.

He put his faith in to someone else instead.

When he had first met Mary, he hadn't had the most honorable intentions (if he was being completely honest with himself, though that was something he rarely did during those days.)

She was beautiful and they were young and John was looking to get laid.

But before they did anything, before they even kissed for the first time, just talking to Mary changed his whole perspective. He went home that night with Mary's number and a promise to call her falling from his lips instead of the satisfied smirk he had been expecting.

When he went on his first date with Mary, his whole world did a little flip on it's axis.

She was so cynical but buried beneath the exhaustion layering her eyes, he saws tiny flickers of hope.

He found himself wanted to fan that hope, make it into a roaring fire and he began feeling like he would do anything to put it there.

When he realized that, it was also the time he first realized he was in love with her. Not seriously. He was young and though he had lived beyond what most his age ever had he wasn't looking for too much from her. It wasn't something he expected would last forever but it was the first moment that he realized that maybe, if it did last forever, it wouldn't be so bad.

There were many approaches he tried but he never really succeeded.

The first honest-to-god flare of hope John had seen in Mary's eyes had come on a morning when she'd called him out to breakfast with news. She probably didn't notice the involuntary flicks of her own eyes downwards and John wondered what she was looking at.

Before she could tell him what she'd called him out here for, he realized what she was looking at. Her hand grazed over her stomach and it was like he could see a light shining, a little life inside her and he smiled his reassurances at her and grabbed her hand, telling her he'd always be there for her. The hope in her eyes had lit up like fireworks.

He heard her choked sobs from the other room after she had excused herself, asked for a moment. Her mother's words of consolation did little at a time like this, but they were all Deanna had to give and Mary was more than happy to take what comfort from them that she could.

John was devastated and started thinking of ways to bring hope back to her, but Mary had done it for herself.

She had left at some point that day and John had stayed with Samuel and Deanna, in a near silence. The company really helped right then. None of them knew where she had gone but they'd all seen the light in her tear-filled eyes when she returned.

She whispered to him that night, confided in him as held her in a bundle in his arms, eyes glued with reverence to the bible his parents had given him. She told him about the faith she had never had and the revelations the loss of the child had given her. In so many ways she was blessed, she had said, to have John and to have her parents and to have knowledge, though John didn't know at the time what she was talking about at all.

He fell asleep with her warmth somewhere at his core and was woken some time later but the quiet whispers of prayer slipping through her barely parted lips.

He didn't think of God that night. He thought of what he could do to make her happy.

They lived on. Samuel and Deanna, though... It was a tragedy. There were moments were he caught her eyes dulled with pain and weariness, but other than those glimpses of the sadness and hurt in her life, her eyes were filled now more than ever with the brightness of hope and blissful understanding.

He remembered clearly the choked sob, equal parts relief and loss, happiness and sorrow that filled her whole expression as he gazed up at her, feeling as though he shouldn't have been alive, but happy to be because Mary needed him.

And then it had happened. He felt their lives clicked into place and the unspoken words as she pressed his hand to her stomach all those years later.

She thanked God that night.

John didn't.

He wasn't sure how much could be attributed to God, but that wasn't important to him. Right now he didn't have God to thank. He had Mary, just Mary, and the years of struggling they had gone through to get where they were that day.

The next time he thought of God was as he sifted through the burned remains of his house, his sons in his peripheral vision, Dean whispering comforts to baby Sammy. He looked at the burned pages of the bible his parents had given him.

He tucked it into his coat pocket.

Later, he brought it to the river and threw it in with some of Mary's ashes.

That was the last time he thought of God.


End file.
